How to enjoy different types of wine without losing any of their flavors.
When I have an important dinner, I love to have different types of wine on the table.
The ideal would be to drink a different wine for every dish.
For those of you who are not experts, the rule to follow is to serve the white wines before the reds, the rose’ before the reds and after the whites.
White wines are less structured and have less tannins that reds, which if drank before the whites it would anesthetize our palate causing the white wine to taste like water.
Young wines must be served before older ones continuing always with older ones.
Light wines must be served before the ones that have more body and are more structured.
Wine having higher alcohol is served after wine that has less alcohol.
Colder wines before warmer ones (an exception is made with sparkling wines like prosecco, and spumanti when drank as aperitif) this is so, because wines with higher temperature release more flavors and aroma.
Dry wines must be served before sweet wines.
I would love to read personal experiences when dining out at nice restaurants.
Ciro.

That was good, Ciro! Common sense.

I happen to be doing a great deal of dining out, lately, and it inevitably involves my girl and I ordering wine, that's almost exclusively what we do, unless we are slumming, having burgers and beers.

So, I used to really prefer ultra-dry whites. But over time, I found my pallette changed, and also that whites just didn't agree with me at all any more. I think that sometimes they trigger headaches moreso than a solid red.

Here in Ohio, we have Lake Erie wines, and many other wineries. Basically, though, I don't enjoy many of these regional wines.

There are a lot of good wines available, if you look around for deals. Yellow Fin and its relatives are a good buy. Merlots are getting pretty quality at the low-end. I'm always happy if I find a real good Merlot for under ten bucks. Sometimes I get them for four or five...

Nowadays, I put myself in the hands of the restaurant. Often, they have great reds around. I like Merlots quite a bit, and their relatives...Shiraz and so forth.

I find that a really good move at some Italian restaurants is to simply order Chianti.

On the other hand, sometimes no wine at all. Last night, I came off a performance and went to a very cool place in the loft district (Cleveland) called The Nauti Mermaid. They have excellent martinis, and stuff their own bluecheese olives. That went very well with steamed clams, and some seafood manicotti.

I also think that if you are having sushi, you need be careful if considering wine with it. Chilled vodka is pretty good. But, for wine, there is plum wine. Now, most of this stuff is very thick, and caramel flavored; I don't like that at all. There is one- Kikkoman (like the soy sauce you buy). They make an excellent plum wine, it is about 7 bucks a bottle, but increasingly hard to find. I like it in a cocktail glass with crushed ice (preferably ice made from distilled water). This is tasty, but doesn't seem to interfere with the sushi.

Rich:I find that a really good move at some Italian restaurants is to simply order Chianti

That is a very good idea, Rich. Chianti goes with any kind of food, there is something miraculous about this wine. By itself it can be uninspiring, but put it on the table with food and all the flavors wake up.
One thing I would suggest though, is that when you go to a real Italian restaurant, find out what part of Italy the owner is from, and see if they offer any wine from that region. Usually they do, and it is wine as good as famous Italian ones and costs much less.
Ciao.

Chianti goes with anything? Oysters? Ice cream? That would wake up flavors better left asleep. I'd as soon eat the two together and skip the Chianti.

Peter

Oh! yes, I forgot to mention, Rich, don't drink it with Oysters and ice cream.
I also use Chianti as hemmoroids pain reliever, mouth wash, shampoo, floor degreaser,
toilet cleaner, and in babies formula.

Ciro,

That suggestion about region is excellent. Actually, there is a pretty strong native Italian community here, in a little area called, of course, "Little Italy." There you find some good restaurants- I believe the first "real" Italian restaurant there was Guarino's, which still exists; I dine there whenever I can. They do a salad with some fried eggplant on it that is exquisite; I've tried to duplicate it a couple of times with medium success.

But anyway, the point is that they and a couple of places have actually brought your point forward to me when we inquired about wine- they said they had certain ones from their region that they of course recommend. I think that the import path is usually very strong on these, I've never been let down. As a matter of fact, the chianti at Guarino's was absolutely fantastic, now that I think about it.

As I said, I'm locked into reds. For some reason, I just can't tolerate whites any longer. Even with fish or foul I order reds.

There is a certain brand of merlot that I tried at another Italian place here, called Maria's Roman Room (mid-price, great service). You absolutely must try this if you haven't, the name escapes me but I will likely be there again this week and I'll ask Patrick, my favorite waiter. This was some stunning merlot.